Lots of rumors about what the Guardians will do. Most of them center around them taking a lower ranked prospect who they will work out a pre-draft deal with to give them extra resources to use for a lower round pick.
HISTORICAL DATA
Let's examine recent drafts to what teams have done at 1-1, using their MLB Pipeline ranking at draft time.
2023 - Pittsburgh drafted the #1 ranked prospect, Paul Skenes. They signed him for $9.2 MM, saving $520,000 from that slot's bonus. They combined that savings with savings from their 2nd round pick to go $700,000 over slot for the CB-B picks. An interesting point is that the 1-11 pick was Nolan Schanuel, who was rated 38th.
2022 - Baltimore drafted the #2 prospect, Jackson Holliday, saving $660,000 under slot. Notably, Arizona took the #1 prospect at 1-2, signing Druw Jones for the identical bonus that Holliday received which, to me, means they liked Holliday better for the same money. It does not appear they used that savings elsewhere in the draft, only going over slot by $300,000 on their 11th round pick, a significant portion of that coming from going under slot on a number of other picks. An interesting point from this draft is Kumar Rocker, the #38 prospect was drafted 3rd.
2021 - Pittsburgh drafted Henry Davis, the #5 prospect, for a $1.88 MM savings under slot. They used all that savings to draft Bubba Chandler at 72 (21st ranked prospect) in the 3rd round for $2.13 MM over slot. The #1 ranked prospect in that draft was Marcelo Mayer, who signed for just $120,000 more than Davis at 1-4. Overall in baseball, Mayer is the #10 ranked prospect and Chandler is ranked 63rd.
2020 - We are skipping over this due to COVID impacting scouting and how players might have changed rankings during the spring before the draft as they often do.
2019 - Adley Rutschman, the #1 ranked prospect went 1-1 and Bobby Witt, Jr., the #2 ranked prospect went 1-2. Rutschman went $320,000 under slot and Baltimore used all that (and more) to sign Gunnar Henderson at #42 (27th ranked prospect)
That's as far as I went back because that's as far as MLB Pipeline went back.
DISCUSSION
There are probably only two reasons to draft someone not rated #1 (or #2) at 1-1.
- The player is not worth what the slot bonus and the player will not settle for a lower bonus more in line with their skills
- The team at 1-1 wants to save money and feels taking a lesser player will still give them a good player plus another prospect who they would have to sign for over slot.
Looking at the 4 draft years above, each year the team drafting 1-1 who drafted either the best or 2nd best prospect in the draft, got a really good player who signed for under slot EXCEPT for Pittsburgh, who got an OK player and saved a lot of money, allowing them to get another OK prospect.
The problems that I have with Pittsburgh approach in 2021 are:
- A team has its pick of all the players at 1-1, meaning they are almost guaranteed to get a stud player as the drafts of 2019, 2022, 2023 (and 2021, if Mayer had been selected at 1-1). They likely would have to dip down to the 5th best prospect or below as Pittsburgh did to save enough money to position themselves to get a much more valuable prospect lower in the draft than they would have normally been able to afford.
- It makes no sense to just say you are going to use these savings in lower rounds. You have to have an idea of the 1-2 players you would target with those savings and you have no idea if the guy(s) you are targeting to use these 1-1 savings on will even be there when it's time for you to draft.
- If you choose the argument that highly ranked players are available all through the draft, then consider this. There are reasons why guys drop in the draft and to say that you are going to draft a highly rated guy who dropped belies the circumstances about why he dropped AND the reasons why 29 other teams haven't drafted THAT guy up to THAT point in the draft.
MY OPINION
So therein lies the problem I have with drafting someone other than the #1 or #2 rated prospect. You don't know if the savings you make on the 1-1 pick will even be useful to you later. And, if they are useful, whether you will end up with the same value as if you had just picked the #1 or #2 prospect at 1-1 and use the lesser, but significant savings under slot, to draft guys to over slot bonuses later.
It comes down to this: You have to think that you are the smartest person in the draft if you think you can outmaneuver 29 other teams to get the EXACT outcome, or even close to that outcome, you want.
To be clear:
YOU HAVE TO THINK YOU ARE THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM.
Now, if you are drafting at the end of the 1st round where the Yankees draft, trying this approach with, say Anthony Volpe, makes sense. But if you are drafting 1-1 you don't have to guess. Just pick the best player available and if you want a second determiner, take the top 2 guys and pick the one who will sign for lesss money.
There is no logic that says that you go with a lesser talent.
You can claim the Guardians outsmarted teams in 2021 by taking almost all pitchers but the Dodgers and Reds did almost the exact thing that year.
You can claim that the Guardians outsmarted everyone else by taking Kayfus and all the rest of the slap hitters from the 2023 draft instead of higher ranked prospects but clearly the strategy, except for Kayfus, has not worked out yet. And the argument can clearly be made that most of the prospects they drafted after Clemmey would have been there 1-3 rounds later.
But they thought they were smarter than anyone else in baseball but look if they had just been logical and methodical. We would have Waldrep instead of Velaxquez and, if we look 2 years from now, I am pretty sure we could have easily had talents better than Ingle, Knapczyk and Hawke and probably even better than Walters (e.g., drafting a starting pitcher) and STILL have gotten 2 or all 3 of those guys later in the draft.
So my advice to the Guardians draft team: Do the logical thing. Don't think you are going to outsmart the system or show you are the smartest guy in the room. The MLB draft is littered with guys who had that thought and ended up burning their teams with high draft picks or even entire drafts that crashed and burned with little return.
Again: DON'T THINK YOU ARE THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM. JUST DO YOUR FREAKIN' JOBS.
If you want to screw with your draft at the end of day 2 or on day 3, be my guest. Just leave the first 7 rounds for guys who make sense rather than guys who you think will surprise the world.
We are Cleveland. We don't have money to offset any mistakes you make.
No comments:
Post a Comment